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  Should’ve Been Us

  A Fate, Texas Novel

  Jess Bryant

  Blue Lemon Press

  Contents

  Synopsis

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also Available From Jess Bryant

  Call Me, Irresistible

  Stay A Little Longer

  It Had To Be You

  Note from the Author

  It’s a destination wedding, Fate, Texas style, and the thermostat isn’t the only thing about to hit its boiling point.

  * * *

  Lulu Nichols has lost the love of her life.

  * * *

  Her best friend, Derek, proposed to someone else. He’s marrying someone else. And oblivious to her feelings, he’s asked her to play best man at his wedding. She can’t say no, not without admitting her secret and ruining everything, so she pastes on a smile and heads to Mexico to watch the man of her dreams get his happily ever after, even if it isn’t with her.

  * * *

  Connor Shaw is finally ready to claim the love of his life.

  * * *

  He wants Lulu. He’s always wanted her. Even though she’s slightly crazy and seriously delusional about her relationship with Derek. Connor is the one that brings out her fire and matches it with his own. He’s the one that drives her just as crazy as she drives him and it’s way past time for her to admit that all their fighting is really just foreplay.

  * * *

  Together they’re like gasoline and a match; a powder keg destined to blow, but oh how satisfying an explosion it will be.

  * * *

  But is their spark the kind that burns fast and then out? Is the heat going to Lulu’s head or is there more to Connor than she’s ever realized? Could they possibly be meant for forever or are they destined to always be a should’ve been?

  Should’ve Been Us

  A Fate, Texas Novel

  Copyright ©2019 by Jess Bryant.

  * * *

  Cover Art: Amanda Walker PA & Design Services

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Any mention of name brands means the author recognizes the trademarks associated.

  For the fighters.

  Keep fighting.

  For yourself.

  For the one you love.

  For forever.

  Chapter One

  Lulu Nichols needed a drink. Not one or two but rather a never ending supply of them. That was the only way she was going to make it through the next five days without a complete and total mental and emotional breakdown. She was going to get drunk enough to forget that the only man she’d ever loved was marrying someone else and she wasn’t planning to sober up until the happy couple was hitched and she had to accept the cold hard truth.

  Derek Harper wasn’t hers. He’d never been hers. Not in any of the ways that mattered.

  He’d been her best friend since she was five years old. The first boy she ever kissed. The same boy she’d given her virginity to in what would come to be known as their greatest mistake. They’d survived it though. Their friendship had survived all the awkward teenage years and then growing up and building their adult lives. She’d been sure it could survive anything but it wouldn’t survive this, at least not their friendship the way it had been before.

  She couldn’t let it.

  She couldn’t keep going on like this. She couldn’t be the woman that constantly settled for crumbs of his attention. He was about to be a married man and she wouldn’t be the most important woman in his life anymore.

  If she was honest with herself, she hadn’t been in years. Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever been at all. If she’d been even half as important to him as he was to her, they never would have ended up here.

  She’d fallen in love with Derek when she was a little girl and twenty years later, her heart still belonged to him, but his heart had never belonged to her and it had taken him proposing to another woman for her to finally see the truth.

  He’d never loved her the way she loved him.

  She hated herself for loving him. Some days she hated him too. She hated that he didn’t love her the way she needed him to and she hated knowing that he never would. Just like she hated that deep inside of her she knew that knowing didn’t change anything.

  She’d loved him in one way or another all her life and if there was a way to stop loving him short of cutting out her own heart, she’d yet to find it.

  She hadn’t stopped loving him when he’d paraded a string of cheerleaders past her in high school. She hadn’t stopped loving him when he’d broken her heart as a teenager. She’d still loved him when he brought girlfriends home to meet his friends and family.

  Even when he’d met Aubrey, when he’d told her that Aubrey was different than all the others, even when he’d proposed to Aubrey, Lulu had still loved him in silence. Even as she’d helped pick out bridesmaid dresses and tasted cakes and ordered a gift from the registry for his wedding to Aubrey, she’d still harbored and hidden her feelings for him. Soon she would stand at his side as he pledged his life and love to Aubrey, not her, and even if she couldn’t stop loving him she would have to let him go.

  He wasn’t hers. He would never be hers. And she wouldn’t spend the rest of her life mourning her loss.

  It was time to move on.

  Derek had made his choice. Derek had made it clear years ago that they would never be more than friends. Derek didn’t love her the way that she loved him. Derek loved Aubrey and he was going to marry her and build a family and a life with her and Lulu would forever be on the outside looking in.

  She had to give up the dream that was her and Derek, together, and focus on her future. As her mother liked to point out, she wasn’t getting any younger. She needed to move on, let go, put herself out there and get serious about dating. That was the only way she might ever find a man that could overcome the ghost of Derek.

  She wanted her happily ever after. Even if she couldn’t have it with the man she’d always considered her Prince Charming. She wanted a family of her own. She wanted a husband that would make her the center of his universe. She wanted a man that would look at her and know without a shadow of a doubt that he was lucky to call her his woman.

  But those plans were for after the wedding. Not right now. Right now, her only plan was to get through this destination wedding week and to do that, she planned to get drunk. Really, really, drunk.

  “I’ll make you a deal…” She squinted at the nametag the bartender was wearing, “Homie? Really?”

  “Howie.” He corrected with a chuckle.

  “Oh… yeah, well, that makes more sense.” She grinned back at him as she held up her drink, “Howie, we’re going to be homies, BFFs even. You feel me? All you have to do is refill this glass whenever it gets low.”

  “This is my job, miss.”

  “No, I don’t think you understand. I will reward you very, very generously if you make sure this glass is never empty tonight.”
>
  That sparked a level of interest in his eyes that might have made her react if she wasn’t cold and dead inside. He was cute, really cute actually. He had honey-brown skin with hair and eyes so dark they were practically black. Add in his alluring accent and he probably made a fortune flirting with boozy tourists from his perch behind the bar.

  Unfortunately, this boozy tourist had no interest in his pretty face or his flirty attitude. Her libido was on life support and she didn’t see her lady bits warming for anyone anytime soon. Particularly not while she was stuck here celebrating Derek’s happily ever after with another woman.

  Maybe, someday, she’d be able to open herself up to someone but for now, her insides felt like a brick of ice. Her only interest in the cute bartender was his ability to pour a drink that would keep her blessedly numb until all of the wedding merriment was over.

  Five days in paradise, that was what the invitations promised, but for Lulu it was like being dropped into hell. Five days of forced couple’s activities when she was single. Five days of wedding parties where she would be alone. Five days centered around the fact that Derek and Aubrey were about to pledge their undying love and devotion to each other in a ceremony that would be the end of every dream Lulu ever had for her own happily ever after. Not even five days of getting drunk on a beach in Mexico would guarantee she made it through without completely losing her shit.

  She’d tried to convince Derek that making her a member of the wedding party wasn’t necessary but he wouldn’t have anything less. He’d anointed her his Best Woman. As if to drive the point home that he didn’t see her as feminine or attractive, he’d asked her to be part of his groom’s party instead of a bridesmaid. He’d said it didn’t make sense for her to stand on the other side of the aisle when she was his best friend. He didn’t know that the only place she wanted to be standing at that altar was in front of him and he never would.

  He couldn’t. He was about to be a happily married man. He was still her friend, her best friend, but that was all they would ever be and it was about damn time she knocked that fact into her own hard head.

  No more denial. No more lies. She was done. Just as soon as she made it through this wedding she was done with Derek Harper. Done.

  But until that time, she was still his best friend so of course she had given in and joined the wedding party. She’d boarded the plane and ordered a drink. Somewhere over south Texas, she’d ordered another. By the time the plane landed in Mexico, her credit card had taken a hit and her pockets were filled with tiny bottles of mind-numbing medication. Unfortunately, drunk at thirty thousand feet didn’t translate to drunk at sea level, a tragedy that she had to overcome as soon as possible because the festivities were set to begin at any moment.

  “How generously?” Howie, her new best pal, was leaning over the bar with a teasing smile.

  “Very,” she pointed a perfectly manicured nail at him. “I’ll give you a crisp, cool hundred at the end of the night, in addition to my tab, if you keep this drink filled. Comprende?”

  “Si, Senorita.” He nodded enthusiastically.

  “If it ever runs dry, I’m deducting from the hundred.”

  He nodded his understanding as he topped her off, “You want to talk about it?”

  “Trust me, it’ll all explain itself when the shrieking begins.”

  Howie looked mildly amused by her comment but moved down the bar to assist another customer. He thought she was being sarcastic. She wasn’t. He’d understand exactly why she needed a drink when Aubrey and her giggling girl gang arrived with all of their high-pitched squealing and shrieking laughter.

  Lulu played nice with the girls, for Derek’s sake, but she wasn’t friends with any of them. Aubrey included. Derek’s fiancé had made it clear from the beginning that she didn’t approve of Lulu’s close relationship to her man. She’d tried pulling them apart. Tried pushing them apart. She’d wedged herself between them but Derek had always been strong enough not to give in. He’d refused to let the woman wipe away what he had with Lulu but she knew, she just knew, that once those rings were on their fingers and Derek was officially a husband, Aubrey’s husband, all of that would change.

  She couldn’t even blame Aubrey. Not really. Not when it must have been obvious that Lulu was in love with Derek. Well, obvious to everyone but him. Aubrey would force him to cut the cord either through manipulation or cold hard honesty and eventually she wouldn’t even have to try to keep them apart. Derek would have a life and a family with Aubrey and no more free time to spend with Lulu.

  Her role in the wedding was Derek’s last attempt to bring the two women in his life together but it wasn’t going to work. Aubrey didn’t want to be friends with her and that was fine. Lulu didn’t mind. She wasn’t aching to form a connection with the woman Derek was marrying either.

  It wasn’t that she hated Aubrey. She didn’t. Well, except on principle alone. She sometimes wished the woman had never come to Fate to visit her cousin. What should have been a week long vacation had turned into a month and then the summer and then a year after she’d been introduced to Derek. She’d stayed in Texas to be with him, which seemed sweet and romantic but in Lulu’s biased opinion, was pure scheming.

  Lulu knew that Aubrey wasn’t what Derek needed in a wife. She was high maintenance. Her family was well off and she made it a point to let everyone know it. Her father was a politician back in Montana where she came from. Her mother was the sweet, stay at home party planner and socialite. And Lulu would bet every spare penny in her bank account that within a few years Aubrey would suggest she and Derek move north, so she could be near her folks, and then, after that she would probably push him to become Congressman Derek Harper or something equally ridiculous.

  Lulu had never told anyone her thoughts on the matter though. Derek only would have rolled his eyes at her and told her she was being ludicrous. And maybe she was but that wasn’t the point. Friends or not, it was Aubrey he loved and if she wanted to move back to Montana then Derek would make it happen for her. Lulu didn’t doubt that for a second.

  Just like she didn’t doubt getting out of Texas was Aubrey’s ultimate plan. The woman had done a damn good job of convincing everyone she loved their small hometown. So much so that people had been shocked when she chose to have the wedding at a resort in Mexico instead of in the small Baptist church in Fate. But Lulu hadn’t been surprised.

  Not by the wedding location. Not by the extravagant weeklong activities list. Not even by the fancy resort.

  Aubrey had gone all out to wow her guests but all Lulu was impressed by was the extensive selection of high-end alcohol behind the bar.

  She checked the clock on the wall. The bridal party was due to arrive at any moment. She’d arrived early. She’d dropped her bags in her cabana and then, after raiding the mini-bar and finding it seriously lacking, she’d headed straight to the bar. Actually, she’d been pleased to note the resort Aubrey had chosen featured several bars spread throughout the grounds. It had taken her some time to locate the one where the mandatory meet-and-greet was being held but she’d still beat the others which gave her time to make her deal with the bartender.

  A mandatory meet-and-greet, otherwise known as the first excuse of many for the wedding party to get drunk and hit on each other.

  Lulu was so not in the mood as she took another long drink from her glass and fanned herself with the invitation she’d brought with her to find the bar on the huge resort grounds. In addition to the mandatory meet-and-greet, the invitation also included highlights such as couples yoga class, dance lessons and sandcastle building. She planned to bail on at least two of those three things and figured she’d leave it up to her hangover to decide on the third.

  She was here but not even Derek could force her to play the role of peppy Best Woman for five straight days. Not sober at least. She took a nice long sip of her new drink and enjoyed the tickle in her throat as it went down. A half dozen more and she might be able to make it through the
next few hours alone.

  Alone. That was the word to define her life these days. Alone, alone, alone. Even when she was surrounded by people, she was all alone. Which she supposed she should get used to considering that’s what her life was going to be from here on out.

  That dark thought had her nearly emptying the glass. Luckily, Howie her new best friend was there to help her out. He switched her empty glass for a full one with a wink and a smile. She appreciated the drink but the flirting, not so much. She should have made that part of the deal.

  She was in no mood for flirting. She didn’t even want to watch her friends flirt with each other and god help anyone who set their sights on her. She knew there would be hook-ups at this wedding. There were too many young, attractive, single people in this magical Mexican paradise setting for it not to happen. But she wanted no part of it.

  Her heart was still mourning Derek. Even if he didn’t know it. Even if he was marrying someone else. She feared that despite all of her common sense and pep talks, she would mourn the loss of him forever. She’d end up the old maid alone with a house full of cats talking to them about the good old days when the beautiful boy down the street had been her everything.

  Lulu took another drink and prayed the numbness set in soon. She needed it. She needed to stop thinking these ridiculous thoughts. She needed to get over her obsession with Derek because wanting what she could never have wasn’t love. It was idiocy. Lunacy. And she didn’t want to end up in a room with padded walls wearing a straight jacket as a fashion accessory.